Investigator Roberts, the widow appeared to be both physically and emotionally drained. Her voice was weak and hard to understand and he felt that she was about to break into sobs at any moment.
“Why don’t you just start at the beginning and tell me what happened,” he said in a gentle, encouraging tone.
She nodded again, but then sat there staring at him as if unable to speak.
He tried again. “Tell me a bit more about yourself, Mrs. Dodson, and about your husband. What is your full name?”
“Janice Morgan Dodson,” she said in a low monotone.
“And where do you work?” Roberts hoped answering simple questions would get the woman talking. To him, she appeared somewhat dazed, as if she were still in shock.
“At Memorial Hospital,” she said. “I’m a registered nurse. I’ve been there about six years…in the Psychcare Dependency Center.”
Janice rose and walked to a nearby table where there was a box of tissues. She grabbed a handful and returned to her chair next to Roberts. He noticed that she appeared to be very stiff and sore and it seemed as though it was difficult for her to move. She stared into space as if he wasn’t there.
“Mrs. Dodson, have you taken any medications while you’ve been here at the hospital?”
She blew her nose and nodded. “Two Ativans last night to help me sleep. I’ve taken nothing today, though.”
Roberts began again. “And your husband, what did he do for a living?”
“Medical technician,” she said. “At County Hospital…for a little over five years.” She paused, staring intently down at the floor. After a minute of silence, she looked up at Roberts with a small, forlorn smile. “We only got married last July, on the fifteenth. We dated for four years, but we’re married only three months.”
Roberts nodded sympathetically. “I understand you were married before, Mrs. Dodson. Is that correct?”
“Yes, to Mark Gordon Morgan. We’re divorced.” She shook her head and looked at Roberts with a wry expression. “He ran off with our daughter’s best friend, Marcy. That girl used to call me Mom, that’s how close we were. I kind of lost it after that. Tried to kill myself and ended up in the hospital for eleven days.”
“Were there problems in your marriage to Morgan, Mrs. Dodson? I mean before he ran off?”
“Well, one time I had to pull a gun on him during an argument, but he took it away from me.”
“When did you last speak to Mark?” Roberts asked.
“About a week ago, I guess. I called to tell him about our children. We have a son and a daughter who are grown.”
“When did you last see your former husband?”
“My father died earlier this year and I had to go to Texas to make arrangements for his funeral. Mark came by my aunt’s house in Chirito, where I was staying. He offered his sympathy and we talked over coffee. That’s when I told him I was going to marry Bruce Dodson.”
“How did Mark respond to your news?” asked Roberts.
Janice shrugged. “He wished me the best of luck.” She leaned back in the chair and blew her nose again. “I had a long talk with Mark at that time and realized he was not the kind of guy I wanted to be married to. That’s when I decided marrying Bruce would be the best thing for me to do.”
Ron Roberts leaned toward her. “Tell me more about Bruce, Mrs. Dodson. How old was he?”
“Forty-eight.”
“Was Bruce married previously?”
“No.”
“Did he have any enemies that you know of?”
She shook her head and wiped the tears that had begun rolling down her cheeks. “He didn’t. He was a good man, not involved in drugs, no debts and he was very self-sufficient.”
“What kind of financial condition was Bruce in, Mrs. Dodson?”
“Well, he had an investment portfolio, but I don’t know the value of it. Bruce tried to explain his investments to me every so often, but I just never paid much attention, because I really don’t understand that stuff and figured that was his responsibility. He had a rental home in Leadville and we just bought a hot tub, so I figured things were going well financially.” She stopped to wipe her eyes and dab at her nose. “My mother-in-law is a wealthy woman. And in extremely good health,” she added a moment later.
Investigator Roberts pondered her response for a moment, but decided he didn’t want to get sidetracked by probing the issue further. There were more questions he had to ask about her husband’s death. “Have you hunted before in the area where the accident occurred, Mrs. Dodson?”
She nodded. “Yes, just three or four weeks earlier. I was by myself, grouse-hunting. I bagged one grouse. I’m an experienced hunter; I’ve been hunting since I was about six years old.”
“Prior to your recent grouse hunt, when was the last time you hunted on the Uncompahgre?”
“Oh, a while ago. Before my divorce from Mark.”
Janice told Roberts that she did not want to go up there after the divorce, because she knew all of them—Mark, his brother, Terence, and her former sister-in-law, Carla, would be hunting in that area and, at that time, she didn’t want to risk seeing any of them.
“I understand Bruce was not an experienced hunter. Is that true, Mrs. Dodson?”
“Yes, but he was very excited about going hunting,” Janice said.
“Was this the first time Bruce had hunted with you in the four years you had dated?”
She began to weep quietly. “Bruce didn’t want to go, because he never liked the cold and there always seemed to be work schedule conflicts. This time I told him I was going whether he went or not, so he decided to go.”
“Tell me about the hunting trip, Mrs. Dodson,” Roberts said. “You hunted on Saturday, I believe.”
Janice nodded. “Yes. On Saturday morning we decided that I would go below where Bruce was sitting and make a drive toward him. You know, try to push some deer up to where he was so he could get a shot. He took a shot at a buck at around eight o’clock, but missed. I met up with him at his spot and we walked back to camp together, arriving in camp at nine-fifteen or nine-thirty. We agreed that on Sunday morning I would make the drive in the same way and he would be the stationary hunter in the same spot.”
Inspector Roberts shifted slightly in his chair. “And what did you do on Saturday afternoon?”
“Bruce went out and hunted alone. I stayed in camp and only went out to hunt when Bruce came back around four o’clock.” She dabbed at her eyes with the tissue and gave a small laugh. “He made it plain I had to be back by six-thirty for dinner. Bruce always cooked dinner and was very punctual about it.”
He knew where he was heading
